Tracy nice to know someone reads the articles. The article looks at several factors wrt those waters. One key point was that adding TFS did not seem to help with large (trophy)LMB but did help with mid-size and smaller LMB. This should help as it relates to this thread.
"A surprise was that the stocking (of TFS) did not do much for the top end large bass. After threadfin shad stocking, weight and condition of smaller and intermediate largemouth bass increased. However, these values did not increase for fish over 380 mm (15 inch) total length when threadfin shad were present in the ponds. Possibly, these larger fish found sufficient larger bluegill to prey upon as gape width, hence prey size, increases with larger fish. One previous author noted that intermediate (250�380 mm, 10 -15 inch total length) largemouth bass were more often found offshore feeding on threadfin shad, while larger fish were solitary ambush feeders found closer to shore."
Eric, do you think that is due to the size of the TFS, and not being optimal sized for the larger LMB in the pond? i.e. Expending too much energy for each meal, resulting in not as many calories going to growing the fish, as the calories were going to sustaining the fish day to day in their pursuit of more food?
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by ewest -
Scott yes that is a logical conclusion . If the TFS start to be eaten in significant amounts by the big LMB you likely have a forage problem of not enough big forage for the big LMB. If your goal is trophy LMB then that may be , absent a TFS kill (where no energy expense is required), a leading indicator of an ensuing problem.
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